Stuff We Like :: 2.14.20

• Find me on Patreon:

• chatting about making the transition to middle school

• in the most recent episode of the Library Chicken podcast

• discussing strategies for teaching grammar through writing

• (and you can also download the winter issue of HSL and our Gulliver’s Travels reading guide this month!)

• What’s happening at HSL:

  • 5 ways to read Robinson Crusoe

  • How to make volunteering a regular part of your family’s homeschool life

  • 3 ways to teach art history

What I’m reading

• Suzanne raved about Murderbot (All Systems Red is the first novella) until I finally broke down and read it just to make her stop talking about it, but as usual she was right. I love Murderbot, too. (I ramble enough about it in this week’s Library Chicken podcast that I won’t repeat it all here! If you don’t subscribe to the Library Chicken podcast, and you enjoy people rambling about what they’re reading, you can follow us on the HSL Patreon.)

• I’m reading tons of poetry right now. The biggest hit with my high school students so far has been “I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party,” though they liked “Good Bones,” too. (They have excellent taste!) The junior high students have been harder to figure out — I thought they’d love the weird wildness of “Tyger, Tiger,” but they couldn’t get into it. I’m thinking of trying some e.e. cummings (maybe this one?) next to encourage them to think outside the stanza.

• You can read my mini-review of 96 Miles over on Instagram. There seems to be an unending supply of these survival stories for middle grades readers right now, and this is a completely fine entry in that category.

What I’m learning

• One fun thing about chemistry with middle schoolers is that they keep asking “why,” which makes me keep asking “why,” too. For example, did you know that glass isn’t technically a liquid or a solid? It’s something in-between, what’s called an amorphous solid. Most solids freeze into super-organized structures, but glass goes through a double-cooling process, which leaves it more disorganized than more traditional solids. Another thing you might not know: You can actually spend an entire class session talking about this.

• There is a lot, like ridiculously a lot, of excellent Asian literature, and it’s hard to pin down what to read for a class I’m teaching in the fall. I mean, this is always a problem, of course — there are so many great books (and stories and poems and plays) and only so much time to read them — but it feels especially hard with non-European literature because I feel like I’ve got to represent the breadth of an entire literary tradition in 14 weeks. This is obviously not the case — all I really need to do is put together a sort of literary tasting menu, which should be easy when there are so many cool things to choose from but which feels overwhelming. Clearly the solution is to read more books so I have more to choose from. (Next up: Some Prefer Nettles)

What I’m watching

• I’m keeping up my Galentine’s tradition of binging Crazy Ex-Girlfriend with my best friend.

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